Just a quick post – today did a 2350 yard swim, and a 4 mile (1 hour) run. A few of my IronTeam members are keeping track of their “mileage” – I didn’t think to start that, but I am going to try to remember to post the mileage when I sign in.
The Swim included a warmup, then stroke drills, then a pyramid set going between L5 (race pace) and L6 (a bit higher) then a warmdown. The first time I did L6 – similar to what happened on Sunday – I spazzed out. I’m remembering how much I hate the “green in front of the goggles” issue of Open Water Swimming, ruing the fact we will be doing our vacation in Sedona when the rest of the team will be doing the 1/2-Iron, afraid that I won’t be able to swim at Louisville in my wetsuit (so I will sink to the bottom and drown), blah blah blah. HOWEVER, I kept telling myself: “This goes away after about 1/2 hour” – and it did. I’m not sure what that’s about – it’s like my mind just gives up sending “spazz signals” if I wait it out. Then again, maybe it was because my MP3 was playing St. Jimmy from American Idiot, and I didn’t have room for spazzing (smile).
I remember my most serious “spazz” was the open water at the Chicago Tri…though the one at the Go Girl Tri was pretty good, too. (That one was different than the usual “green in front of the goggles” issue – I could actually SEE “gunk” on the bottom and was afraid my fingers would flow through the slime strands…iiiiick…)
I got out of the pool just shy of an hour, and instead of rushing through a Transition, I took my time and took a shower. I was careful to SERIOUSLY towel off so as not to have the “chicken wings/locked up” jogbra situation! I realized at that point that I had completely forgotten ANY fluids or snacks, so luckily I had my purse and went downstairs to get a couple of different snack bars (a Zonebar one and a Kashi one), a bottle of Gatorade, and a bottle of water.
I was going to go outside and Run, but it has turned fairly chilly, and H has a cold again – so I didn’t want to go out with my wet hair. As suggested by Kelownagurl’s podcast, I downloaded various tempos from Podrunner.com, and I did the 10 minute warmup, then used the 132 BPM for a 50 minute run. Our schedule said to have an “easy run” and that felt like a good pace to me. Kelownagurl pointed out that the Kenyan runners, etc. usually have a leg cadence/turnover somewhere around 95 – which would mean using music with a BPM of double that. I knew there was no way I could keep that up – but I wanted to give a try to having music that was a straight BPM (versus a playlist) to try the cadence thing. I enjoyed it – it was a great pace for me, though slower than my VDOT.
As with the Swim, somewhere around 15-20 minutes of the Run (after the Warmup) I got the “I am SO DONE WITH THIS” feeling. Then at about 1/2 hour, I was fine. In fact, at the end of the 50 minute Run, I could have kept running.
I had some work today (thank you GOD), have Pole Dancing tomorrow, and some other leads to follow up on (on which to follow up?) I said to someone the other day that the best part about TNT Training is that it’s a set thing I am required to do every day – and I do it, or I don’t, so I succeed, or I don’t, period. It’s not like marketing, or cold calling, or researching, or all the other stuff I should of course be doing – it’s a set thing, I can do it, I can succeed, and feel good about it. Thank you TNT!